


Timeless

by femmenerd



Series: OT3 of Champions [3]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Multi, OT3, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-10
Updated: 2006-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 07:11:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1419268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femmenerd/pseuds/femmenerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set nebulously post-NFA. Angel POV.</p><p>  <i>Angel’s bemused, and wondering how on earth he got into this crazy situation and not entirely caring.  The jealousy’s like habit, but he’s not even sure what it’s for or if it even really exists at all (or who he’d be jealous of).</i></p><p>Originally posted on LJ <a href="http://femmenerd.livejournal.com/56082.html">[here].</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Timeless

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-ed by the lovely and talented [](http://amybnnyc.livejournal.com/profile)[**amybnnyc**](http://amybnnyc.livejournal.com/) and taste-tested by [](http://kita0610.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://kita0610.livejournal.com/)**kita0610** , who is, I have decided, my fairy godmother in terms of all things Angel.  
> 

She speaks so easily with Spike.

Angel watches as Buffy twists the phone cord and smiles, rolling her eyes, most likely at some off-color remark told in the idiosyncratic British accent that haunts Angel’s dreams sometimes.

It’s a strange thing—these two people that he knows so well in such different ways, and he pretty much missed it—all the blood and angst and sex and tears and world-saving they went through to end up where they are now.

_Of course I’ve had all that with both of them myself._

Buffy’s looking over at him now and she mouths, “I’m almost done,” apologetically.

Angel nods and leans against the wall, feeling the silky-thin partition of his shirt press against his shoulder blades.

They’re talking rent checks, and bills and Giles and Slayer Academy and that’s not his world…but he does like to visit.

“You’re really lame, you know that, Spike?”

A pause and then she’s laughing. Tossing her shiny, shiny blonde hair like the shampoo commercial that she is (yes, Angel’s watched some TV this century).

“Goodbye, Mr. Lame-O Vamp.” A beat. “Yeah, me too.”

Click.

She turns to face him. “Spike had to leave in a hurry but he says that I should try and be nice to you.”

Angel’s bemused, and wondering how on earth he got into this crazy situation and not entirely caring. The jealousy’s like habit, but he’s not even sure what it’s for or if it even really exists at all (or who he’d be jealous of).

“You really do love him, don’t you?” he says in a measured tone.

Buffy opens her mouth and shuts it, like she’s about to be uncomfortable, and then he sees the kind of determination that just keeps getting stronger in her every day wash over her face and the pretty-girl features go smooth once again.

Buffy catches Angel’s gaze head on and says quietly but firmly, “You know I do. Don’t you?”

There aren’t really words for how Angel feels about Spike. It’s something. It’s something big. But he’s never really tried to name it before. So he looks at Buffy and his jaw goes slack and all that comes out is, “Ah…”

And then he sees her melt, and has the uncomfortable realization that she really does know both him and Spike far better than he usually acknowledges. And that perhaps knowing them both helps her know each one individually. She pretty much _is_ the expert on souled vampire/human relations, after all.

“This isn’t where I thought we’d be when I was sixteen.” Buffy toys with her hair.

Angel blinks.

“Buffy—” He doesn’t really know what to say, because it’s true—Angel had never imagined this either. But back then, he hadn’t been able to think much further than the next day, the next hour, the next minute—the next time he’d see her. She’d been his whole world, his whole reason for “living”—and it’s a bittersweet place to revisit.

Buffy had always been the one—so innocent then—to say that the future didn’t matter. But it _did_ —does—matter, and the future is now. And they’re together…right here, right now.

It’s the first time he’s been alone with her for any length of time since this whole thing got started. And suddenly Angel feels nervous, like he’s a young man, and not what he really is—a very, very old vampire. The weight of the intervening years hasn’t lifted; Buffy just…does this to him.

She finally looks up, with those eyes, green and glinting bright in the low light of his apartment. He still prefers the dark.

“But…this isn’t so bad, right?” There’s an almost-tremor in her voice, and his heart aches with love for her. This is the girl, no, the _woman_ who changed him more than any curse.

“No, Buffy, it isn’t bad at all.” He risks a smile, and is rewarded with a dazzling, timeless Buffy grin.

******

“Well, he does have that annoying sexy accent thing going on that you girls all seem to like so much. _I_ used to have an accent too, you know.” Light grey storm clouds roll over Angel’s face. But he’s teasing…mostly.

Buffy rolls her eyes. It’s an action that can speak volumes with her.

“Yeah, so what? You’ve got the tall, dark and handsome thing working for you. Besides,” Buffy’s eyes gleam wickedly, “you know you think it’s hot, too.” She grins again and waggles an eyebrow.

He has to laugh at that.

“You really are something, Ms. Summers.”

“Yep, ‘something,’ that’s me. I am chock full with all kinds of ‘something.’”

She’s had two glasses of wine, but said no to a third.

He made her dinner and watched her eat. Saw her dig in with gusto and a passion she usually reserved for slaying and…other things. Buffy’s got a bit more meat on her bones again.

It makes him want to fuck her.

“It’s weird. It’s kind of like he’s always with us…at least a little.”

Angel looks across the table and meets her eyes. Says nothing, but gives her a whisper of a nod.

One thing that can always be said about Buffy is that she doesn’t give up easily, because the next words out of her mouth are, “Because you _do_ love him too, don’t you?”

This time the nod is a little bit more perceptible. He hopes it’s enough.

“We’re too old for ‘perfect happiness’ now, aren’t we?” Buffy blushes but carries on, “I mean, you guys have always been old. Oh god, I’m sorry. Me and the serious talking thing? Not always the mixiest.” She looks a little worried and a little apologetic.

Angel smiles indulgently and more than a tiny bit wistfully. “You helped us grow up, Buffy. I know—I know I’m more thankful for that than you know. And Spike—well, Spike would say the same too, I’m sure, although probably with more expletives and possibly in freeform verse.”

They both laugh then, his deeper chuckles harmonizing with her somewhat unladylike snicker. It makes things easier—and the air becomes a little less thick. Teasing Spike is just another thing that they share.

And then she looks up, with those eyes that have been stirring him at the core for what _can’t_ be just a few mortal years.

The lust kicks in, the rumbling and growling in his inner sanctum that he’s put on hold, pushed away for so, so long. But they’ve rescued him from his loneliness, if only for a weekend at a time.

With Spike, no matter what Angel feels about him, there will never be perfect happiness, because the other vampire reminds him of what he is, and what they are both working toward. (But that’s what makes it hot.)

And with Buffy…it’s not her—it’s just that that time has passed.

But Angel doesn’t want perfect happiness anymore, because that kind of joy is blind and blinding; it keeps you from seeing the things that matter. Duty, sacrifice, the struggle, the things that come closest to making Angel feel proud—the things that make him feel like a man. Not to mention the fact that it’s _dangerous_ (and keeps him from getting laid).

In this moment, what he most wants is to be touching Buffy.

They bridge the table with desperate lips and hands, like they did that one precious day that only belongs to Angel now. So Buffy doesn’t know that when she’s lying beneath him on the wooden slats of the table, whimpering and grinding her pelvis into his, it’s déjà vu.

But that’s OK, because he gets to share this new memory.

*****

When Angel grips Buffy’s hips, she pushes back—hard—as if to remind him that she is a woman now, not a girl.

Her body’s so much smaller than his underneath his hands, but she’s strong, so strong and can go on like this for hours, boiling like a tea kettle at full blast.

This deluge of her wanting him, wanting him, wanting him is making Angel dizzy, and happy, and for once in his unlife, he’s not thinking about much else.

Buffy wants him everywhere and tells him as much. Dirty words spilling from her pretty mouth and she probably learned a lot of that from Spike, but he doesn’t care, because she’s here in his too-often-lonely bed with him now, and later it will be all of them, and sometimes it will be just him and Spike and when he comes it’s her name that falls from his mouth.

*****

Afterwards they lie panting and naked on his high thread-count sheets—black because they match his wardrobe (and Spike’s too, come to think of it).

And she’s beautiful—his golden girl. The original golden girl. Buffy—the Slayer to end all slayers (or the beginning?).

“What am I to you?” His voice comes out quiet and low. When did he turn into this sentimental fool? Oh right, the first time he saw her face, round and bright and pink-cheeked.

Buffy looks up at him and smiles wistfully, cups the side of his face with her powerful little hand.

“Oh Angel, you’re my lover. You always have been.”

The word “lover” on her lips almost makes him shiver in a way not befitting his stature. It’s romantic and sexy and _timeless._ Because “lover” is not “husband” or “boyfriend”—it’s outside of space and time…like this love.

All the same…

“What if I want the rest of it too?”

Buffy sighs.

“But you don’t, Angel, not really. You have to save the world, in _your_ way, on your turf…and—and so do I.” They’re big eyes that she has, and they might swallow him whole. “But I’ll come running like _that_ ,” she snaps her fingers, “if you need me.”

“And Spike?”

“Spike’s not like you. He’s a strong fighter but he's not meant to lead and he knows it.”

She’s a smarter girl than he’d ever realized—and Angel’s in love with her. Plus, there *is* something incredibly hot about “timeless.”

“So I’m your lover.”

“Uh huh. There could even be lingerie and assignations.” She’s making a goofy face that doesn’t quite mesh with the image he’s procuring for himself of her kitted out in black lace and red satin.

Angel just smiles back dazedly for a second and scrubs his hair with one hand.

“And me and Spike?”

“Well, that’s up to you.” Buffy face takes on a terribly serious expression before she continues, “But you know I like to watch.”

Angel coughs.

“Yeah, I got that.”

Buffy trills a giggle and leans downs to kiss him, covering his chest with silky strands of her hair. And it’s kisses like this that make it all worth it.

“I’m going to visit more,” she breathes into his mouth.

“Bring Spike too…sometimes.”

And then they’re boiling again.

*****  



End file.
